Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
CPU Wait Time
CPU wait time is the time the CPU is waiting for a certain process to finish instead of pro-
cessing something else. This is usually because it is waiting for an important portion of a
current process it is working on, such as waiting for synchronization or I/O operations to
finish. This is why I/O operations must be kept at a manageable level.
Impact of Configuration Changes
Configuration management is an important aspect of any system, especially one where
downtime is not tolerated. Configuration drift and unauthorized configuration changes are
said to account for more than 70 percent of IT service outages. Improper configuration also
contributes to performance issues and performance degradation and impacts IT productiv-
ity and budget as a result.
Impacts of Unauthorized Changes
Change management is essential to foster a consistent and robust system, and the first
step is to ensure that all configuration changes are known, planned, and approved.
What happens when this essential aspect is not addressed? Take, for example, a firmware
development organization that develops firmware for automobile computers. The com-
puters are connected to various sensors that provide them with information so that they
can adjust various performance characteristics of the car in real time. The organization
uses the C language and a compiler specifically configured for creating its firmware
Now it just so happens that the company is pushing for new features that need new sets
of code that have not been used before. Unfortunately, the new implementation does not
compile with the current compiler configuration Believing that the code is already per-
fect and that the problem lies with the compiler configuration not being compatible with
the new code, the build engineer tweaks the compiler to allow it to finish building without
notifying management. The code compiles and the firmware is delivered and functioning
without a hitch. There are no problems until a new update is needed. Together with the
older compilation, the newer code in the update compiles with the tweaked compiler,
creating situations that cause the computer to malfunction.
It just so happened that the build engineer had already long ago left the company, so
it takes a very long time for the developers to pinpoint the cause simply because the
change the engineer made to the compiler was not documented.
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